100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year

gollum123 writes "The BBC news magazine is running a compilation of the interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts that we did not know last year, but now know. some examples — There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts. Urban birds have developed a short, fast 'rap style' of singing, different from their rural counterparts. The lion costume in the film 'Wizard of Oz' was made from real lions. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. The egg came first."

Comments

Duh

[UbuntuDupe]

Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.

That doesn't sound very surprising, given that a gas always fills its container, just like a liquid always takes its container's shape.

Oh, and by the way, if, like me, you went straight to the bird one, you couldn't but snicker at the picture's caption: "There are an estimated 1.7million great tit pairs in the UK."

Re:Duh

[Sciros]

There's another sentence in there that starts well: "The research focused on great tits in ten major European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague..."

Reminds me of the vacation I took this past August.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.

So how much unharmful methane does it give off? Do you know that you breathe out deadly carbon dioxide? That the earth is infested with deadly dihydrogen monoxide? That 40% of all sick days are taken monday and friday?

Useless liberal fear mongering.

Re:Duh

[lahvak]

Anyway, the thing that I found curious about this whole thing is why they used the metric "400 1 litre bottles" - how would that be any different from filling a single 400 litre bottle?

Because 400 one litre bottles will need more plastic than one 400 litre bottle, thus making it even more harmful to the environment.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs

[duguk]

Though the 666 term of 'Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs' is true, in 2005, "a fragment of papyrus was revealed, containing the earliest known version of that part of the Book of Revelation discussing the Number of the Beast. It gave the number as 616, suggesting that this may have been the original."

FYI: Port 616 is officially registered to SCO System Administration Server.

Re:Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs

[Anonymous Coward]

aibohphobia (the fear of palindromes) didn't make the list.

The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I thought The Devil Wears Prada.

Re:The Egg

[Anonymous Coward]

BullShit! The Rooster came first.....

Great tits!

[garcia]

The research focused on great tits in ten major European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, and compared them to forest-dwellers.

I'd be singing faster rap style songs too rather than longer melodies if it attracted mates with great tits.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Oblig python

[Weaselmancer]

43. There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world.

Not 'round here, sir.

Re:Not quite

[sugarman]

30. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.

You mean that we didn't know that years prior?

Well, they didn't know how well it was cooked. It was previously thought to be al dente. They've now confirmed that it is closer to Kraft Dinner.

Re:godless evolutionist pagans!!!

[Surt]

Actually, birdseed came before the chicken OR the egg ;)

I thought birdseed was what was released when the chicken came.

1.5p

[Paradise Pete]

Flushing a toilet costs 1.5p, but the cost of requiring flushing is, of course, only 1p.

Re:stat on everest

[rubycodez]

thus we see it is far safer to climb mt. everest than to be president of the U.S.A.

A small problem

[StikyPad]

Ouch. You'd think they could've phrased it a little better.

Oh, sorry...